The Offspring of Chaos Part 1
by PercyXArtemisXathenaXRheaXchao
Summary: Chaos is having a child. Alternate universe. I suck at summaries. NickXAnnabeth. Don't be mean, this is my first fanfic. Adopted from nutsofthechest. Rated T because I'm paranoid.
1. Chapter 1

Chaos was having a child.


	2. First few Moments

Abyss has found out that chaos has had a child. He was resting in his banished house at the edge of the galaxy. Suddenly, he felt the power of chaos weaken and heard the cry of a baby. He smiled to himself. This is going to be fun. He then started to advance towards the center of the universe, traveling at about 5,000,000 miles per hour. Chaos heard the explosion when abyss blew his prison in to smithereens. She quickly turned to her brother and said, "Order, I need you to cast more spells around abyss to stop him from getting to my baby. GO!" Order immediately set to work, while chaos hid the baby in the opposite of the universe on a planet called earth. It was ruled by deities unlike all the other planets which didn't have deities. She left the baby in front of a door in which Sally Jackson lived.


	3. Chaos

Chaos looked at the child in the TV. She smiled to herself. The baby was now ten years old and was not attracting too many monsters. She still remembered the day which she left the baby in front of Sally's door. Chaos had watched as the child was adopted by Poseidon and Sally. She had hoped that Zeus would have adopted her but oh well. She turned to her brother and said, "How are the spells going?" Order replied, "Really good, abyss is having a long time to get here. It is going to take him 8 years to get here and 10 years to get to earth." Chaos said, "OK, now could you set a spell on him so he doesn't accidentally destroys the Olympia council." Order replied, "Ok" Then order started to hum in ancient Greek. She turned back to the screen as Percy Started to go to school.


	4. The day before i go to camp

Percy POV

Today was the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff. I was at a boarding school named Yancy. I was sent there because there were no more schools. I have brother named Alex and he is also here. I was adopted and he was born in to the family. Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip. Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep. I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. Me and my brother always seemed to get in to trouble because we were ADHD. See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that . . . Well, you get the idea. All the way into the city, I saw Nancy Bobofit, the freckly redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my brother's best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich. Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from P.E. for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death-by-in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip. "I'm going to kill her," I mumbled. Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter. "He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. Alex walked to us and sat down. "You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens." Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. Alex was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around him was talking, and every time Alex told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give him the evil eye. Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown. From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured Alex was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at Alex and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and Alex knew he was going to get after-school detention for a month. One time, after she'd made me and Alex erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious and said, "You're absolutely right." Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up? It came out louder than I meant it to. The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?" My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir." Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?" I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" "Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because . . ." "Well . . ." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-" "God?" Mr. Brunner asked. "Titan," I corrected myself. "And . . . he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me. "-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group. Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'" "And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?" "Busted," Grover muttered. "Shut up," Nancy hissed her face even brighter red than her hair. At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir." "I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?" The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doo-fuses. Grover and Alex were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson. I knew that was coming. Alex told Grover to keep going. Then he turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. "You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me. "About the titans?" "About real life. And how your studies apply to it." "Oh.""What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Alex Jackson."

Alex POV

I wanted to get angry; this guy pushed me so hard. I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral. He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Luncheables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something out of a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs.

Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Percy POV

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks that couldn't make it elsewhere. Then we saw Alex walking towards us. "Detention?" Grover asked. "Nah," Alex said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a genius." Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give Alex some deep philosophical comment to make him feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?" I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.


	5. The day before I go to camp Part 2

Alex POV

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit

appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten

tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten

lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles

were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with

liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million

times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so

mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy

was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Alex pushed

me!"

Percy looked at me in surprise.

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"

"-the water-"

"-like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I

was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay,

promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc.,

etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her

eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.

"Now, honey-"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to coverfor me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But-"

"You-will-stay-here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I saw percy give her his deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. I then turned to face

Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the

museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing

impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or

something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if

a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the

blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part

of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking

pale, cutting his eyes between me, Percy, and Mr. Brunner, like he

wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr.

Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was

now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for

Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up

to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble

frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her

throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being

alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the

way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it . . .

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really

think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to

hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Alex Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only

a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will

suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal

stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe

they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the internet

without ever reading the book and now they were going to take

away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the

book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't . . ."

"Your time is up," she hissed, her eyes glowing like barbecue

coals." Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket

melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a

shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of

yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger. Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute

before, wheeled his chair into doorway of the gallery, holding a

pen in his hand.

"What ho, Alex!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear.

I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my

hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's

bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost

dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that

came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her

body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was a sandcastle in a power fan. She exploded into

yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the

smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air,

as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been

contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over hishead. Percy was standing under a tree. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her

swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she

saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy

what she was talking about. Percy started to come over.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Percy where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his

book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen.

Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed it over. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Alex,

there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has

never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all

right?"


	6. The day before I go to camp Part 3

Alex POV

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twentyfour/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never . But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was was going on. Something had happened at the museum.I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every , when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good. Even Percy started defending me, saying that he was working me too hard and the stress was overtaking me. That wasn't true but I was thankful for him trying to defend headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: We would not be invited back next year to Yancy , I told myself. Just fine.I was homesick.I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tourna-ment days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him. The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Percy was so startled that he fell out of his chair. That was real funny afterwards. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it. I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Alex Jackson. I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried. I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a

question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about them , sir." I froze. I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you and your brother to an adult. I inched closer. "... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-" "We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- " "Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her... ." "His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to

convince him of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that

would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now

let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller

than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice." "Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..." "Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me." The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night. Percy as it looked like had fainted in his chair while studying. I couldn't blame him, my head had started to get faint and confused when I started to look at all those latin words."Hey," Grover said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?" I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought we

was in some kind of danger. The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek

and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other

kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions

with her lips.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the

right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he

believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy.

That's nothing to be-" "Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.

"Percy-"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a

hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile

delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or

ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a sum-mer job walking dogs or selling magazine

subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd

booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again,

heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other

passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased.

But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?" Percy looked at me in confusion.

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

He winced. "Look, Alex, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math

teachers ..." Percy leaned forwards in his chair," Yes?" I Said, "Grover-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no

such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me

this summer.

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something

like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... sum-mer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the

others at Yancy. "Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect

you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get

beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole

bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of

the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine com-partment, the driver announced that we'd all

have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side

of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from pass-ing cars. On the other side, across four

lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and

apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no cus-tomers, just three old ladies sitting

in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted

one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of

electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white

bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face.

His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Alex. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I

heard Grover catch his breath. "We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the white-gold yarn, and I swear I could

hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me

wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine

compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?" He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much,

much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't.

It was something else, something almost-older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like

the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

"Okaayyy. Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already pick-ing the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.


	7. Authors Note

**A/N: Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or any character in the story. I do not own plot.**

**Looking for powers that Percy could have.**

**Here are the polls:**

1Kinesthetic

1 10%

2Immobility

1 10%

3Sonic Scream

1 10%

4Enhanced Agility

1 10%

5Cloaking

1 10%

6Earth Manipulation

1 10%

7Vapor Manipulation

1 10%

8Dust Manipulation

1 10%

9Concussion Beams

1 10%

10Liquification

1 10%

11Flying

0 0%

12telepathic

0 0%

13Mind-Reading

0 0%

14Power Manipulation

0 0%

15Personal Physical Powers

0 0%

16Powers which affect an individual's body.

0 0%

17Invisibility

0 0%

18Invulnerability

0 0%

19Dynamic Camouflage

0 0%

20Cyclone Spinning

0 0%

21Water Generation

0 0%

22Echolocation

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23Aquatic Respiration

0 0%

24Enhanced Physical Skills

0 0%

25Enhanced Strength

0 0%

26Enhanced Swordsmanship

0 0%

27Night Vision

0 0%

28Abacomancy

0 0%

29Powers that can control the will of others.

0 0%

30Ability to control or manipulate the elements.

0 0%

31Fire Manipulation

0 0%

32Water Manipulation

0 0%

33Ice Manipulation

0 0%

34Electric Manipulation

0 0%

35Electromagnetic Manipulation

0 0%

36Fish Manipulation

0 0%

37Amphibian Manipulation

0 0%

38Weather Manipulation

0 0%

39Cloud Manipulation

0 0%

40Storm Manipulation

0 0%

41Ash Manipulation

0 0%

42Energy Manipulation

0 0%

43Force-Field Generation

0 0%

44Shapeshifting

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Unique Voters:1

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